Passengers stranded for hours at airport

RAWALPINDI - The battle between police and Pakistan Awami Tehrik (PAT) workers upon arrival of Dr Tahir-ul-Qadri left scores of domestic and international passengers stranded at Benazir Bhutto Islamabad International Airport (BBIIAP) here Monday morning.Hundreds of passengers had arrived Pakistan on six flights from Kuwait, Dammam, Paris, London, Muscat and Dubai. The passengers including women, children and old aged people faced a lot of trouble as their receivers could not reach the airport because of closure of roads by police with containers and barbed wire.Though CAA announced to start shuttle service to provide facility to passengers coming from abroad and other cities to go to their houses safely as all kind of traffic entry was closed on the airport road, yet no shuttle service to carry passengers and bring the travelers going through different airlines was provided by CAA, causing immense troubles for passengers. Zubair Sheikh, who came from Dammam, told The Nation that he and his son had been waiting for normalizing situation but in vain. He said that the ASF and CAA officials were much rude and did misbehave with them. “The mobile phone is not working and there is no one to help the passengers to get information,” he said. Javeria Khan, another passenger who had landed at the Islamabad airport in Kuwait airline, said that her mother had died and she came Pakistan to attend her funeral. She said that she wanted to go home early but all the roads were closed. A Pakistan-returned lady was of the view that her brother was struggling hard on the airport entry gate to get in to receive her but ASF did not allow him and thrashed him.Many other passengers said that they have been shuttling between the officials of PIA to get the information but nobody informed whether he had to stay at the airport or they would provide any service to go to home. They said that the government should have canceled the flights to airport if there was severe problem of security. BBIIAP Manager Ayaz Jadoon, when contacted, said that the CAA had launched the shuttle service from Sunday evening but it had to be suspended after the clash between PAT workers and police late at night. He said that thousands of workers were trying to enter the airport premises on which the ASF had to close the entry gates to protect the installations and suspended the service.

This news was published in The Nation newspaper. Read complete newspaper of 24-Jun-2014 here.